Brits may leave Iraq in '06

Leaked memo stated 8,500 British troops could drop to 3,000 by mid-June.

Leaked memo stated 8,500 British troops could drop to 3,000 by mid-June.

November 15, 2005

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Sunday that British troops could leave Iraq by the end of 2006, an estimate that Britain's top soldier said was realistic but did not amount to a timetable for withdrawal. Talabani said Iraqi troops should be ready to take over from British forces in the southern provinces around Basra by the end of next year, adding that no Iraqis wanted foreign troops to remain indefinitely in their country. But he warned that an immediate withdrawal of U.S.-led forces would be catastrophic for Iraq and lead to civil war, with consequences for the entire Middle East. "We don't want British forces forever in Iraq. Within one year -- I think at the end of 2006 -- Iraqi troops will be ready to replace British forces in the south," Talabani said in the interview with Jonathan Dimbleby for Independent Television. Prime Minister Tony Blair's administration repeatedly has refused to give a timetable for withdrawing British troops from Iraq, although a government memorandum leaked in July said Britain was considering cutting its force from the current 8,500 to 3,000 by mid-June. Blair and other ministers have stressed that British troops will stay as long as they are requested by the Iraqi government. President Bush also has refused to set a timetable for withdrawing 150,000 American troops from the country, saying it would play into the hands of insurgents. However, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi said Friday that U.S. troops could begin leaving in significant numbers sometime next year. The British army's chief of staff, Gen. Sir Mike Jackson, said Sunday that the assessment offered by Talabani for British withdrawal was "well within the range of what is realistically possible." "The president has said that we could leave within a year or so. I would agree -- we most certainly could. But it's a question of achieving the right conditions," Jackson told the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Sunday A.M. program. Jackson insisted, however, that such comments did not amount to a timetable for withdrawal. British Defense Secretary John Reid said Talabani's comments were "completely consistent with what I've said, which is that we will stay in Iraq until the job is done."